Any student trying to select their courses knows that it’s no easy task. People often seek out resources or reviews of potential classes, using advice from older students or online reviews to help them make their choices.

But as it turns out, students should have had access to an even larger amount of course information all along.

A McMaster University policy put in place in May 1997 stipulated that the course evaluations from each faculty should be made public—both for students and for faculty members, with the intention of “providing students with information that may help them choose their courses.”

And yet, 16 years after the policy was put in place, students don’t seem to have access to these evaluations.

Martin Dooley, a professor of Economics and Chair of the Joint Committee of the McMaster University Faculty Association and the University Administration explained that the policy hasn’t been followed for years.

“We have a whole policy that’s been broken down in many, many ways,” he said.

Dooley, as Chair of the committee, brought the years-old policy to the attention of university administrators and faculty after discovering of his own accord that it wasn’t being followed.

“I called the library to see about [the availability of a paper copy] on my own initiative,” he explained. “They told me they hadn’t kept this for at least five years, so clearly something was wrong.”

The original version of the policy required that results of from each course evaluation, as well as the course statistics, be available to students in print through the University Library and the MSU, as well as online.

Though the goal would be to have results of evaluations public, the system currently operates through an opt-in policy, in which each professor must give their approval before details are released. The responsibility for this is put on each Department Chair.

Dooley explained that although he had filled out the form indicating his consent, the evaluations of his classes were not available.

He was inspired to take a revised version of the policy to the attention of the Joint Committee, and then to the Senate, where it will be discussed in the coming weeks.

The provincial government announced a new tuition framework last Thursday that allows Ontario universities to increase tuition fees by an average of 3 per cent starting this year.

Though the number is down from the previous framework’s 5 per cent allowance, groups including OUSA, CFS-Ontario and the MSU aren’t satisfied with any increases above inflation.

“It is disappointing that the provincial government has not tied tuition to a more fundamentally fair rate of inflation,” said Huzaifa Saeed, VP (education) of the MSU in a release.

“However, I respect the fact that the old framework was not continued, despite pressure from academic institutions to do just that.”

The new tuition framework will be in place for four years, and the 3 per cent limit on tuition increases applies to most full-time arts and science and college programs. The increase is above Ontario’s average rate of inflation, which is 2 per cent over 10 years.

Tuition for professional and graduate university programs and high-demand college programs are allowed to increase by up to 5 per cent, down from 8 per cent.

According to Saeed, the MSU will now divert its efforts to lobbying for more government investment in the financial aid system. Specifically, the MSU will advocate for eligibility expansion for the 30 off tuition grant and a lower debt cap on the Ontario Student Opportunity Grant.

In a statement responding to the Province’s announcement, OUSA says the new framework “makes progress” toward a more affordable system but has not adopted key recommendations made by students.

OUSA recommended last fall that the government freeze tuition for at least a year and increase per-student funding at the rate of inflation.

CFS-Ontario recommended this past February that tuition fees be reduced by 30 per cent over the next three years.

While there are women’s centres in over 20 schools across Canada, McMaster is one of a handful of campuses that does not have a comparable centre. So for the past few months the MSU has been investigating if there was a need for a women’s and trans* centre (WTC) on campus.

Research from the WTC Ad-Hoc Committee showed that a vast majority of students, 78 per cent of those surveyed, said that they would use a WTC to seek counseling or in order to provide information to support a friend. 237 people responded to the online survey.

At the March 24 SRA meeting, a motion passed that formally recognized and acknowledged the need for a women’s and trans* centre on campus.

The motion also recognized the MSU’s commitment to ending violence against women and trans* individuals on campus.

However, the motions were not passed without much discussion amongst the representatives.

Some assembly members especially took issue with an original motion, which called for a commitment to ending violence. There was argument over whether the particular motion was purely symbolic and didn’t call for enough tangible measures.

But several members strongly argued that voting against that type of motion was more indicative of the MSU’s lack of support and divisive stance on ending violence against women.

Elise Milani, Chair of the Ad-Hoc Committee and SRA Humanities, stated that, “When we commit to it we’re saying we’re continuing to work. If we vote this down…it inherently says that we [the MSU] don’t want to end violence and against women and trans* individuals.”

Similarly, Simon Granat, SRA Social Sciences expressed his dismay in those opposed to the motion.

“It’s astounding that people are saying, ‘yeah I don’t think I’m going to vote for this’. Yeah it’s big. Yeah it’s lofty. But we’re committing to ending violence. To me this really shouldn’t be a discussion.”

Assembly members were presented with up to date information and research that the Ad-Hoc Committee had compiled in order to inform their decisions and stance on the necessity for a WTC on campus.

The research collected showed that there was a gap in services which SHEC, the Wellness Centre and QSCC was unable to fulfill in terms of providing specific sexual assault counseling or a discussion forum for gender issues.

Violetta Nikolskaya, a WTC Committee member, explained how, “we have to recognize it’s imperative that we have something on campus for students. Something that is convenient, readily accessible and central to students.”

Milani described how the committee’s next steps will be to look more closely at funding, location, partnerships with organizations such as SACHA and examine the liability of providing counseling and services.

“We can’t put all the responsibility on the WTC. It’s a huge thing we need to try and tackle. And this is just one part,” said Milani.

“Doing awareness campaigns and providing training [about violence against women and trans* individuals] is another big part of the overall issue.”

It’s not always easy to decide what courses to take. Every year, after flipping through the course calendar or asking friends, students battle with SOLAR to choose their courses.

But with a recent website development, the MSU hopes to make the process easier.

Current MSU VP (Education) Huzaifa Saeed has spearheaded the creation of the MSU Course Wikipedia, an online database of course information. The website, which is currently a beta version, is based on a site established by the Western University Science Students’ Council.

“It was something I noticed last year,” explained Saeed. “When it comes to actually choosing a course, the only information available is the course outline, which often doesn’t go up until August. The other source students have is MacInsiders, which has course reviews…but if something is designed with ratings in mind that might not be the best thing for you to get information from.”

The MSU-run website, which was programmed by McMaster computer science student Abdul Rahman Khodr, is able to be edited by the general public.

The pages are meant to give a more comprehensive look at each course, including a breakdown of content and assessment methodologies. Saeed explained that this was key, since according to surveys administered over the course of the year, students care a lot about how they were assessed.

Each page will also have space for comments, so as to allow for course reviews or extra information.

While Saeed is in the final weeks of his term, he hopes to see good progress on the project before then, with the goal of having at least 10 or 15 courses posted as models for students to work from.

And he thinks his successor will also be keen to promote it. He noted that both candidates for the position have shown awareness of and interest in the project.

“Since the MSU doesn’t really have a traditional role in on-the-ground academics, they’ll take it upon themselves to really run a grassroots campaign,” he said.

The plan is also to have individual faculties take charge of posting their own courses through the faculty societies and their VPs Academic, giving the VPs “the option to do more policy [work] and direct academics.”

The website is set to be officially launched this week, and the goal is to have the website be fully functional by September 2013.

I volunteered for MAC Bread Bin in second year, and I helped run an event called Feed the Bus. We parked a school bus on campus and asked students to donate food and spare change for Hamilton food banks.

I was a SOCS rep then, too, so I talked to one of the vice-presidents of SOCS about helping me promote the event by spreading the word among reps.

The response was incredible. A crowd of reps, who brought with them their orange jumpsuits and Welcome Week enthusiasm, congregated outside the bus every day for the week, soliciting donations from passers-by. We wouldn’t have raised near the amount of money that we did without them.

SOCS still helps out every year for Feed the Bus. Why? Because SOCS reps care about feeding the hungry in Hamilton, and they do something about it by supporting MAC Bread Bin. That’s just what it means to be a rep with the off-campus students society.

Fast forward three years to the MSU’s general assembly on Tuesday. After last year’s attendance of over 670 students, this year was an embarrassment. Only 60 people showed up, and no more than 30 voted on either of the two motions.

To be clear, a well-attended general assembly is not the end goal. It shouldn’t be about quorum for the sake of quorum, or direct democracy for the sake of direct democracy. It shouldn’t use gimmicks to boost attendance. But it has the potential to be a big opportunity for student ideas to get some attention, and people need to be aware that it’s happening.

Promotion for this year’s GA, though, was awful. Intentionally or not, the MSU made little effort to tell students about an event that, just a year prior, they felt was worthy of a major marketing campaign. The date announcement came late. There weren’t many posters. There wasn’t even a Facebook event.

There’s no question that the poor promotion was responsible for the low turnout. But, more importantly, it meant that only one motion was on the table at the start of the meeting.

In years past, the motions were what drew the crowds. Last year, the Welcome Week fee proposal got reps to attend. A motion for the MSU to recognize the Greek Life Council got fraternity members out. The McMaster Marching Band went to see their fee request pass.

It wasn’t about attracting students one at a time. It was about finding where they were already engaged and meeting them halfway.

And despite the problems with the 2012 general assembly (see last week’s editorial), it got that right, even though our students union usually gets it wrong on political student engagement. Be it in General Assembly or the SRA or other avenues, they don’t go to where their members already are.

It’s not that students don’t care. The term “student apathy” is an ugly one – it misplaces the blame.

The problem is structural. If you’re on the SRA, you might be involved in some other segment of campus life, but only by coincidence. At Mac, student government is just another thing to do.

Students care about their societies, clubs, rep groups and social circles. That stuff comes to constitute a person’s identity. I wasn’t just a Mac student. I was an ArtSci, and I lived off-campus, and I was – and continue to be – a Silhouette editor. And because of those things, I found new ways to engage. I found new things to care about.

And that’s why, if the MSU really wants to know how students are feeling or what they want, it needs to connect itself to other groups.

In the same way that being a SOCS rep has become synonymous with caring about food security in Hamilton, being a part of some facet of campus life should fit naturally with political engagement in the MSU. A change like that could ensure better use of student money. It could improve student life. It could turn unilateral lobbying efforts into movements.

It won’t be easy. It could mean re-making a decades-old student government structure to incorporate student leaders from other parts of campus. Or it could mean that the MSU should absorb faculty societies.

But if the MSU wants to be seen as a viable means through which its members can improve their undergrad experience, change is necessary. The MSU can’t be isolated. It can’t keep splitting the attention of students who want to be engaged.

And it can’t keep trying to fight this enemy that is so-called student apathy.

When Amina Khan and Yusra Munawar were told last year that their on-campus prayer room would be torn down, they didn’t hit the panic button.

Khan and Munawar, executive members of the McMaster Muslim Students Association, were assured by the university that they would be relocated before Wentworth House, home of their space, was demolished.

Now, with a few weeks left until eviction, the MSA and other student groups in Wentworth House are still looking for answers.

“Everybody’s scrambling. They’re trying to find spots for us in random places on campus, trying to find temporary solutions. We don’t know how long we’ll be in those spaces and it’s just really frustrating,” said Khan.

The MSA has more than 1,000 Muslim student members at McMaster and has two rooms in Wentworth House that allow up to 100 students to pray at a time.

“We were clear about our requirements – that the [new] space needs to be carpeted. It needs to be a large, accommodating area that’s accessible to campus in order for Muslim students to pray there. Surprisingly, the space we were given is anything but that,” said Khan.

Recently, several tenants including the MSA were told they would likely be moving to a portable unit in Lot O. The lot is about 1.5 km from campus, located past the bridge behind the Mary E. Keyes building. Shuttle buses run from campus to Lot O between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. Monday to Friday.

“Muslim students pray five times a day between classes,” said Khan. “A place that needs a shuttle bus to reach is completely unacceptable to the Muslim community.”

Khan and Munawar said if the MSA had to temporarily move to Lot O, students would end up praying in various nooks on campus.

“You can’t fit a thousand Muslim students in hallways of libraries and little corners across campus,” said Khan.

About two weeks ago, representatives from four groups located in the Wentworth House came together in hopes of getting their individual needs across with more impact.

“We’re deeply concerned there hasn’t been uniformity in the communication between McMaster and the tenants,” said Norm Pase, vice-president (external) of CUPE 3906.

Pase started an open Facebook group Monday called “Save Our Space: Wentworth House Shutting Down” to create a forum for the parties involved.

The MACycle bike co-op, owned and operated by the McMaster Students Union, finds itself in the same position as the MSA and CUPE 3906.

MACycle director Connor Bennett knew that relocating would be a big project. He did some research on his own last summer, feeling a “slight sense of urgency.” Even so, he assumed a space would be secured by March.

“When you’re told not to worry, it’s nice to hear, especially when you’re dealing with school. I feel silly at this point, seeing how unprepared they are. Now we’re getting to the end of March and they’re saying, ‘we need your help,’” he said.

Bennett said MACycle having to move twice is the worst-case scenario because it has so many pieces of bike equipment.

“This has worried me a lot. I care about MACycle. A lot of people care about it,” said Bennett. He said that moving to Lot O temporarily would discourage cyclists from using the co-op because of the uphill ride afterward.

Roger Couldrey, McMaster’s vice-president of administration, said he was surprised tenants were worried about going to Lot O. He added that, so far, it’s only been decided that the McMaster Children’s Centre will move there by the end of April.

“It seems that what I’m being told isn’t fully understood by the tenants or wasn’t communicated to them,” he said.

Couldrey said an alternate space would be proposed to the MSA at a meeting on Friday. He said finding a space for MACycle would be more challenging but discussions are still ongoing.

However, Facility Services coordinator Robert Craik confirmed that Lot O would be a default solution if no other arrangements are made by the end of April.

For the tenants, getting mixed messages from Facility Services and the university's administration isn't new. David Campbell, the McMaster Students Union's VP (administration), expressed similar frustrations. He’s been advocating for some of the groups and asking for updates throughout the year.

“The first I heard about the Lot O decision was in January, and I was disappointed that that was the decision they came up with,” said Campbell.

The Photo Club's darkroom manager, Myles Francis, has been reaching out to administrators on his own since last spring, concerned about the darkroom being left behind.

“I felt like if I didn’t go out there and tell people that it existed, the building would have been demolished with the darkroom still there,” said Francis.

The Lodge, a temporary space for off-campus students in Wentworth House this year in lieu of the old Phoenix bar, seems to have been scrapped due to lack of space, according to coordinator Jennifer Kleven.

Francis didn’t want the same thing to happen to the darkroom.

Since February, Francis has been researching darkroom spaces in the downtown core, where he says involved students would be willing to go.

“I don’t like the idea of things being done for me that I feel I should have a hand in. I mean, nowadays who knows how to create a darkroom? Who knows what the darkroom needs, other than me?”

While they’re unsure of long-term plans, tenants aren’t giving up on their cause. But they’re not buying university officials’ advice to not worry.

“I think it’s an issue of prioritization on the university’s end,” Khan said. “Each club has different needs, but we’re united in that we all share the same space. Whatever we can do to help each other, we will.”

Photos by Anqi Shen.

Once a year, students take the time to pay tribute to those people who make their education possible: their professors. After the recent announcement of this year’s MSU Teaching Awards, and the ceremony on March 14, the Silhouette sat down with some of the award winners to get their take on what it means to get recognized by their students.

Dr. Felicia Vulcu is not your typical professor. Hailing from Romania, Vulcu spent her high school years in Edmonton and was pointed to McMaster by her guidance counselor. After completing her undergraduate degree, Master’s, and PhD all at Mac, in 2008 she ended up with a job in the same department that had trained her. As an assistant professor and undergraduate advisor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, Vulcu is focused on the learning experience, making her a perfect recipient for the Pedagogical Innovation Award.

What exactly do you do here at McMaster?

I do a lot of things in the program, but mainly I was hired to run the teaching labs. We are very research intensive, so we have a full-year second year lab — that’s the one I won the award for. The idea behind it was to introduce students to research but really sneak in techniques, instead of just giving them techniques. [We have them] do many different things – some inquiry, some presentation. I try to minimize their stress, especially with assessments. That’s my goal in life. For me it’s not to get students to learn, because I think everybody learns. It’s to get them to understand the research process, and then see if they like it, because if they like it, they should stick with it.

How did you end up in your current job?

I had no plan on getting here. I know people sometimes sculpt, but I bumped through life. I didn’t know what to do in my undergrad. I liked the research concept, and when I went in, I loved it. Then I matured and I saw who I was as a person, what I wanted out of my own personal life—I wanted to be happy, and I wanted to have a social job, where I interact with people. I saw that the researcher job…didn’t fit my personality. I applied to every job known to man, and I just bumped into this. You can say it was luck—it was dumb luck. But once I got in it, I absolutely loved it.

What does this award mean to you?

It was not something that I set out to do—I just enjoy teaching. Getting this was very humbling for me, so I just felt warm all over. When the students give me something like this, it means that they really are responding to me. But it’s not just me doing this—we make a huge effort in our department to be innovative to get students to just see how passionate we are about research. It was huge for us—everyone in the department is happy that this program is being recognized. You can’t be innovative on your own.

 

Joe Argentino always knew that music was his calling. And now, as an Assistant Professor in Music Theory in the School of the Arts, he lives that dream and teaches music skills, as well as and music history for non-music majors. First coming to McMaster to fill a position for a professor on sabbatical, he has found a home at Mac over the past four years. As the teaching award winner for the Faculty of Humanities, and a nominee for last year’s awards, it’s clear that students like having him here.

What exactly do you do here at McMaster?

I teach skills classes, such as sight singing and keyboard harmony. I also teach upper level theory courses, in twentieth century analysis and history courses, and courses for non-music majors. This year it was my keyboard harmony class that nominated me. Most of them were from this 2D03 class. It’s not usually a very popular course—it’s one of those classes where students are constantly assessed. Last year I was nominated for a sight singing class, which most people don’t like because they have to sing in front of their friends and it’s a bit scary. And obviously teaching is as important to me as research; they’re neck and neck. For my research, I generally analyze music from the twentieth century, and I would consider myself an expert on the music of Schoenberg. I try to bring new approaches to the music. Sometimes this type of analysis I do can be very math heavy, and some of the work that I do takes the math away from it and makes it user friendly.

What do you hope students get out of your classes?

I generally want my students to enjoy themselves in my class. I want it to be an experience where they feel fulfilled, even just being there. Of course, I always have the goal to get through the content, but to be better thinkers, to have confidence in themselves…I try in all my classes where it’ll benefit them regardless of where they end up. I just think I try to make my classes very relaxed, so people can approach me. I use a lot of humour and try to be as encouraging as possible all the time, but at the same time…I really want people to excel and do their absolute best. People are not afraid to talk to me, ask me questions, or make mistakes in front of me.

What does this award mean to you?

To be nominated, already I’d felt like I’d won. There’s nothing better than getting that recognition from my students. Sometimes you don’t know—last year when I was nominated, I was really surprised. I had no idea my students were enjoying the class. And this year it was kind of the same thing. Sitting at the ceremony, I felt very emotional. I wasn’t expecting to feel that. Having won, being on stage—it was the absolute highlight of my career so far. I can’t remember ever having experienced a better feeling.

 

In a referendum attached to this year’s Presidential Ballot, students voted ‘Yes’ to award the McMaster Marching Band 90 cents from student fees next year to support their actions.

Marching Band President Joshua Patenaude, a fourth-year BioPsych student, explained how the club has made both short-term and long-term plans for this new wave of funding.

“In the short-term we will be repairing everything we have. Everything needs repairs. But in the long-term, we’ll be building up our instrumental set and replacing instruments that have gone beyond the point of repair.“

The McMaster Marching Band will be receiving close to $20,000 next year because of the new levy. The band has budgeted for the monies to be predominantly spent on instruments, while also allocating some funds towards instructional costs and uniforms.

Queen’s University has a $5 levy attached to their student fees, while Western requires the members of its marching band to pay a $200 introductory fee.

Marching band members at Mac have typically paid a $65 membership fee, $250 in uniform fees and a miscellany of fees attributed to their respective instruments and music.

Patrick Osborne, a Marching Band VP and third-year Business Informatics student noted that this funding does not completely solve all of the band’s problems.

“The $20,000 is not sufficient right away. But we wanted to shoot for long-term stable amount of funding. Five years down the road we think $20,000 is what the band should be able to be sustained upon,” said Osborne.

The members all agreed that the funding will significantly lower financial barriers which would preclude students from joining the band. Miranda Clayton, the band’s promotions director described how certain instruments, such as the sousaphone, the instrument she plays in the band, are more expensive than the average cost of repairs.

Other major expenses include instructional costs, drum line replacements and possibly budgeting for the introduction of a colour guard to perform along with the marching band.

You see the bake sales every week. Sometimes a particular treat pulls you in. Sometime a specific poster draws your attention. But how often are you directly concerned with the cause or where your money is going?

Mac has over 300 MSU-affiliated clubs and approximately 125 are specifically related to social issues. These groups may be building homes in the global South or combatting domestic poverty.

But how are we to know if what they say they’re doing, they’re actually doing?

In a TED talk by AIDS Ride founder Dan Pallotta, he discussed how we are damaging the non-profit sector by refusing to look to business models as ways to improve their impact and our own charitable giving.

As students, part of our MSU fees goes towards clubs funding. And don’t you want to know your money is being used productively? Besides the portion that goes to services we directly access, at SHEC for example, other parts of our fees go towards various other operations in the MSU. This is largely to do with the management of clubs.

As someone who was once on a club executive, I am acutely aware of the process that clubs undergo to simply renew their status and receive funding.

But I don’t think it’s enough.

You submit a rough budget, a year plan, lists of goals, etc. But fundamentally no one is holding you accountable to these goals. And specifically in the case of social issues clubs, I think this puts us, as investors, in a dangerous predicament.

We are unaware if a club is sending money to where they say they are. Or we may not even know if they are achieving or struggling to achieve the goals they set out to accomplish.

When I see the small, student-led grassroots initiatives in various countries, this fear seems especially real. How well thought-out are their endeavours? Do they have a business plan based on short-term and long-term goals and an action plan to get them there?

And from a human resources perspective, will all of the initial startup money they received from clubs funding be in vain if the founding students graduate and haven’t planned for a leadership pipeline?

This problem can be just as applicable to other social issues clubs that are tied to larger not-for-profits and NGOs like Amnesty International or Free the Children. These groups may be well structured and aligned with larger organizational goals, but can easily lose sight of goals or funds amidst all the bureaucracy.

In five years here, I can certainly say I’ve seen social issues clubs pop up and collapse within the course of a year or two due to poor planning, lack of support and lack of goal setting and other accountability-based measures.

I’m not saying that other types of clubs don’t face the same problems, but if we really want to call ourselves global citizens, and our generation really cares about addressing social problems, it has to start with caring about social issue-based clubs on campus.

One day, we’ll have incomes of our own to invest at will. Hopefully we’ll choose to invest in not-for-profits and social enterprises that address social problems. And hopefully we’ll choose wisely and invest strategically in organizations that truly will make a difference.

But until then, let’s critically ask if we’re doing enough on campus to hold social issues clubs accountable.

So next time you’re at that bake sale table, speak up and ask what it is that you are supporting.